I tried, I really did. I just can't look past the first one. Yes it is a major phobia of mine but I am terrified of spiders . I am sure they are just gorgeous but I will just have to take your word for it.

Archosaurs to be exact. Jurassic Park did not portray the velociraptors correctly. It should have been a third of the size, and covered in feathers. Chicken dinner is just a reptile - hence why folks say some reptiles taste like chicken

That mostly comes from writing content for a website, as I am working on a long-delayed article about the Permian-Triassic extinction event. The Permian is when synapsids ruled the world the first time, the extinction event wiped them out with exception of three known groups, and lead to the dinosaurs, a reptile, dominating the world.

Synapsids rule the world again, since well... 65 million years ago the reptiles took a hit and only the birds were left (however most everything else survived surprisingly - it is a drop in the bucket compared to the Permian-Triassic event). Mammals, and their ancestors, go back some 320 million years, and predated the reptiles in being a dominating force on the planet (as reptile-like mammaliforms).

Reason I am writing this paper is the recent trend of extinctions is actually outpacing the Permian-Triassic event (which wiped out 90% of all species across the board on the whole planet - including the trilobites) in under a million years. We may be looking at 50% in less than 50.

The G. pulchra is also known as the Brazilian Black, and is very docile. Of all the species in the genus Grammostola, it is pretty much the least defensive you can get. Individuals, of course, may vary, but there has not been anything I have seen reporting any G. pulchra as being defensive.